The present invention relates to management of mobile applications. More particularly, and not by way of limitation, the present invention is directed to a system and method to distribute processing of mobile applications between a mobile handset and carrier network.
Mobile or wireless handsets—popularly known as “cell phones” or “smartphones”—are becoming a permanent fixture in today's human communication environment because of the flexibility and mobility afforded by the wireless communication. With ever-advancing technology affording more and more power and utility, today's mobile handsets significantly dwarf those of just a few years ago in utility, functionality, compactness, and ergonomically-attractive designs. However, despite increasing design sophistication and processing power, mobile handsets remain unable to satisfy heavy processing/resource demands of today's advanced mobile applications (e.g., gaming, graphics, and multimedia applications) residing in mobile handsets or downloaded by users of the handsets.
It appears that at least the following two traits are becoming prevalent in today's mobile application domain: (1) In order to deliver optimum user experience, applications are demanding more and more CPU (Central Processing Unit) processing capacity in the mobile handset to satisfy their insatiable desire for enhanced graphics and multimedia presentation. (2) Additionally, “chatty” applications—i.e., those applications that require frequent communications (via carrier network) with their external servers even though the user is not actively using them—are taking a strong foothold among the new generation of smartphones (e.g., iPhone™, Android™, Blackberry™, etc.). These advances in mobile application functionalities have the undesirable side-effect of creating undue pressure on the capacity of the mobile (carrier) network as well as on the battery life of mobile handsets.
These problems have not gone unnoticed, but the existing solutions appear short-term oriented. For example, the following methods are being tried by the mobile network operators and mobile handset vendors: (1) The operators are trying to restrict the applications that the users can download into their handsets. (2) The operators are considering to charge additional money for the “chatty” applications (such as presence or location tracking applications, data feeds of audio/video or other contents, etc.). (3) The handset vendors are trying to focus on getting faster and better processors into their devices. However, these approaches fail to provide a long term solution because it may be difficult (and sometimes not “user friendly”) for the operators to police the application usage of its mobile customers and, in case of handset vendors, the advances in processor technology may not be capable of keeping up with the mobile usage demand. It therefore appears that the future generation of smartphones may continue to play catch-up to the demand side of the equation as soon as the phones are upgraded to the newest processors.